Category: Blog

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Prevent a Midlife Crisis — Blog!

I just had a essay published in the Gainesville (FL) Magazine about my recent career change from active duty Navy to travel writer.  One of the things I wrote about was coming to a juncture in midlife when you realize you probably won’t be president or a Nobel Prize winner, so now what? 

My decision at age 45 was to do what I love and strike out into the civilian world as a freelance writer….and as a writer, how can I NOT blog?  If my goal is to be a successful communicator in today’s world, then it must follow that my goal is also to be a successful blogger.  You have to build an online presence to reach the largest possible audience. Even if you are not a writer, surely you have some (secret?) passion that you’d like to write about and share with the world.

The great thing about blogging is that I am my own editor.  I write what I want, when I want, within the constraints of my family travel topic.  No one edits my stuff or tells me that I “have to cut it down to X number of words.”  That also means that one of my blogging goals is to write such dynamite stuff that no one ever says; “Gaak, that chick desperately needs an editor!”

Then again, if you read my Blog Herald post on “How I Blog,” you may wonder how I get any writing done at all. 

I also like the immediacy of blogging. I write it, I click “Publish” and it’s out there.

People like that immediacy, and that means they want fresh family travel content and they want it often.  My goal is to provide that, but not to get too trendy or write about something just because everyone else is doing it.  Let others do the “What to See in Germany During the 2006 World Cup” articles, for example.  There is also something to be said for not just throwing posts out there for the sake of posting frequently.

I can also write about all sorts of unexpected things online — my first paid freelance writing assignment was to blog.  The Edmunds.com blog The Driving Woman hired me to cover the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) Gatornationals drag races from a new race enthusiast (and woman’s) perspective. For four full days I did interviews, took notes, watched races, took photos, blogged like a fiend and generally fell in love with the sport.

Thanks to that gig, I’m now a regular contributor to a motorsports blog, Fast Machines.  How cool is that? An obvious goal at this point is to keep finding and blogging about topics that pique my interest, even if I might not consider writing about them in print media.

My final blogging goal is to not lose interest in the topic of travel with kids.  I may not post quite as frequently in the future, particularly when my kids are grown, but as long as I’m a writer I’ll be a blogger. 

I have over a decade to go before my youngest is out of the house, so there are a lot of years left in the family travel topic.  Maybe then this site will morph into another sort of travel blog; I hope you’re around to see it.

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Blog Tips

What the Heck’s an RSS Feed & Why Do You Want One?

Allow me to veer off into techie stuff for a moment, but only to change your online life entirely….

To keep up with the latest postings in Family Travel: See The World With Your Kids, you need RSS (Really Simple Syndication) unless you don’t mind manually coming back to this blog each day to see what’s new (not that I don’t want you to work for all of this great info.)

RSS feeds literally “feed” your home page (on Yahoo or Google for example) with clickable headlines from Web sites and blogs that you like.  You’ll need to set up your home page to add content, and then as long as you’re logged in as You, the home page displays the latest posts in all of your hand-picked areas of interest.

I warn you, it’s addictive.  Think of your best bookmarks or favorite Favorites all feeding their latest goodies onto your home page.  You’re thinking, “Wow, it really is all about ME!”

My own personal Yahoo home page has every travel-related feed known to humankind, a bunch of finance, tech and blogging blogs, foul-mouthed & hilarious Wonkette and In the Pink Texas because they’re great for political stuff, and some drag racing feeds.  Latest headlines and interesting pop culture stuff too.

THAT’S how you get to be a know-it-all.  Takes me 2 cups of coffee to get through it, but I figure that doing housekeeping is highly overrated; then I go off and write like a banshee ’cause all that reading makes me want to do Author Work.

To get yourself started, look around on your favorite sites for a clickable link that says RSS or RSS feed, an orange button that says RSS or XML, or the really knucklehead-proof button that says something like “Add this site to My Yahoo.” Click and start populating your home page with something more interesting than weather and DJIA ticker stats. To see Family Travel’s feed, look up at the top of this blog’s page, above the lovely Hong Kong skyline, and there are the buttons.

If you’re on another site clicking RSS buttons and get a bizarro page full of code gibberish, freak out not.

I figured this out about 3 days ago (and I’m a liberal arts major)….look up into the URL address bar above the code goop and you’ll see a URL with the site’s name and some jumbly stuff and the words rss or maybe xml in there somewhere.  Right click and Copy that URL.  Take it back to the Add Content section of your home page (feeling very geeky about now) and look for something like “Add Feed By URL.”  That’s your cue. Paste that rss URL into that box, and if the cyber Gods cooperate, you’ve added the feed.

I’d love to know if this post is useful to you (comments for this blog are a bit thin; like, there aren’t really any, so talk to me) and then go get RSS fed….

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Blog

Join the 2012 Mom Blogger Camp in in Velas Vallarta, Mexico

This is a guest post from Jen Miner, blogger at The Vacation Gals, and organizer of the 2012 Mom Blogger Camp in in Velas Vallarta.

Mention the phrase “mommy blogger” to a crowd, and you’ll get a few different reactions. What some people view as a viable way to accrue a little extra income while staying home with young children, others see as a rudderless industry in need of guidance. The truth is, there are as many types of parent bloggers as there are parents, and judging with broad strokes do no one any favors. There are all sorts of parent blogs and whether you’re a professional parent blogger with a distinct niche or a mom just toying with the idea of starting up a casual blog, there are always ways to improve your blog. Even family travel bloggers like myself straddle the line between two niches (parent and travel blogs, obviously).

Blogging conferences abound. Just like there are travel blogging conferences, there are parent blogging conferences — way more of the latter, in fact. I’d like to talk about a one-time-only parent blogger mini-conference that should cover a lot of ground for blogging newbies and old-timers, in an incredibly fun, relaxing environment. The Mom Blogger Camp in in Velas Vallarta has some of the top experts on hand to give professional blogging tips and advice — plus hey — it’s in a Puerto Vallarta all-inclusive resort in the middle of winter! January 5-8, 2012, to be exact.What an awesome way to warm up: Mixing professional growth with a sunny vacation south of the border.

Now, I’m the conference organizer for this one-off Mom Blogger Camp, but the folks over at Velas Vallarta know what they’re doing; they hosted a Food Blogger Camp last winter, too.  The expert speakers coming to help parent bloggers grow professionally will also be enjoying themselves, hanging out by the pool, perhaps indulging in a spa visit, and all those other activities denoting a tropical vacation. Mom Blogger Camp attendees will have the opportunity to casually hang out with the speakers (within limits, of course, let’s respect each others’ personal space here!) in the afternoons, with most sessions being in the morning.

I’m looking forward to hearing The Bloggess‘s topic, Famous on the Internet. Not that I’ll ever be famous on the internet, but she’s hilarious and amazing. Also greatly anticipated are Deb Ng, Aparna Vashshit-Rota, Adria Richards, Peter Carey, Anne Hartsell, Mary Jo Manzanares, and Amy Whitley. Umm.. and that’s it. Not looking forward to any other speakers at this mini-conference, because that’s the lot of them! It’s a small, low-key, yet meaty retreat with lots of time to enjoy Puerto Vallarta.

The schedule is here; you can see that there’s some time built in each day for Mom Blogger Camp attendees to talk up any travel sponsors.  This is an important part of the schedule — after all, while this is a very, very affordable conference, the cost of air fare will have to be considered as well. Fortunately, from what I’ve seen, many family-friendly companies are happy to help mom bloggers get to conferences in the form of straightforward sponsorships.

The Mom Blogger Camp is open to anyone (dads too, of course!) and will be January 5-8, 2012 with the actual conference days are the 6th and 7th. I’ll be there, and I hope you will consider it, too.